Short Answer
Your employer can legally terminate your employment contract without providing any statutory justification during your initial six-month probation window.
The national Protection Against Dismissal Act remains completely inactive until your 180th day of employment, reducing your exit notice period to exactly two weeks.
What Most Expats Don't Realize
You relocated your entire life for a corporate role and assumed your position was protected after passing a positive three-month review. During your fifth month, the executive team restructured your division and handed you a termination notice without providing a performance explanation. Because your residence visa was linked directly to your active corporate sponsor, you lost your income and were forced to pay €3,500 in non-refundable lease break fees and emergency relocation costs.
What To Do
- Send an immediate notification email to the immigration office (Ausländerbehörde) the moment you receive a termination letter during your probation term.
- Register yourself as a job seeker with the Federal Employment Agency (Agentur für Arbeit) within three days of your dismissal notice.
- "Ich wurde während der Probezeit gekündigt und benötige eine Sucherlaubnis." (I was terminated during my probation period and require a job-seeking permit extension.) — write this to your immigration case handler to freeze your deportation clock.
The Truth
Germany maintains a dual-tier security architecture that treats new hires as completely at-will assets for the first half-year of employment. The system provides zero job security barriers for your employer during this window, placing the entire residency and financial risk onto the foreign worker.